When in
1917 Gandhiji stepped into Champaran (Bihar) to enquire into the condition of
the agriculturists there and understand their grievances against the indigo
planters, there was a hue and cry raised against him by the latter fully backed
up by the Anglo-Indian Press. The planters demanded his instantaneous removal
from the district and even hinted that they would take the law into their own
hands if the authorities did not arrest his further progress. It is now a matter
of history how the authorities, succumbing to the agitation, served a notice on
him to quit the district immediately, how he refused to oblige them, how he was
then put under arrest and asked to stand his trial, how finally realizing the
serious consequences that would follow his conviction, the Viceroy intervened
and had the case against Gandhiji withdrawn.
The chagrin of the planters at such a turn of events could well be imagined, and
some of them began to hold out threats of direct action. A day before the
interview which Gandhiji was to have with the Governor of the Province, the
Pioneer published a lengthy letter from a leading planter, Mr. W. S. Irwin,
Manager of the Motihari Factory, in which he wrote as follows :
"Mr. Gandhi, I believe, is a well-intentioned philan­thropist, but he is a crank and
a fanatic and is too utterly obsessed with his partial success in South Africa
and his belief that he has been ordained by Providence to be a lighter of wrongs
to be able to realize that he is being made a cat's paw of by pleaders and
Mukhtears etc...Mahajans and moneylenders...and by Home Rule politicians... For
the protection of the property of the Champaran plan­ters, one and probably only
one step is essentially necessary and that is the removal of Mr. Gandhi from the
district. The extreme forbearance of the planters has so far prevented the
outbreak of any serious disturbance, but unless Govern­ment can see its way to
protecting them they will unavoid­ably be forced into taking, the steps
necessary for their own protection."
The European planters' threats were, however, un­availing as Gandhiji refused to be
cowed down and ulti­mately the Bihar Government felt obliged to appoint a
commission of enquiry into the grievances of the agriculturists.